


Two Worlds

by waterlogged



Category: Leverage
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3370961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlogged/pseuds/waterlogged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of Parker's emotional journey pre-Leverage, to S5. </p><p>"Things have ceased to surprise [Rosslyn] - either it's squirrels, or bags of money, or statues that smell like sand and wood, or a orange in the middle of the counter, or a ungodly amount of MTV on the PVR, or a small, helpless shape curled up in the nook between the couch and the wall. This is just another test, another query - a question, expressed in the only way that Parker knew how."</p><p>Happy endings don't always look like happy endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> Just a work of fiction and experimentation.

The digital clock in the room is the only light by which Rosslyn can see anything – but it’s unnecessary, since there’s only one person who would be in her room at this hour. There’s no preamble this time – there’s no window sliding open in prelude of a grand entrance, no door clicking mysteriously shut. Just Parker standing by the bed like she materialize there not a second before, the light filtering through the window curtains outlining her body. 

“Hey,” Rosslyn mutters quietly, stretching slightly to try and get some blood flowing so she can figure out what the hell is going on. 

Parker remains silent, her face a shadow. Rosslyn doesn’t need words – the stillness of Parker’s body, the fists her fingers have curled into, the barely audible even breathes, it speaks volumes to her state of being. 

Rosslyn shifts back across the bed, lifting the covers, thoroughly awake now. “Com’on,” she says quietly, and for a moment she wonders if Parker will come – but then Parker’s hand twitches and she’s sliding between the covers, sliding up against Rosslyn, pressing her face against her shoulder. “Hey,” Rosslyn says, pushing the hand that’s not trapped under Parker’s body into her thief’s long hair. Parker presses against the weight silently, hands finding the hem of Rosslyn’s shirt – Parker’s hands are cold as she pushes them up under the old tee-shirt, shaking as they press between shoulder blades, and warming quickly as Parker shifts and squirms. 

Rosslyn waits patiently, moving as Parker’s fussing noises dictate, this way and that, letting her touch and prod, push and pull. When Parker finally pauses she’s lying on top of Rosslyn; their legs are tangled together, Parker’s arms wrap around her neck and waist, hovering above, stilling, the frantic energy of her manipulations finally calming. 

“You’re alright,” Rosslyn mutters, tightening her fingers in Parker’s hair and guiding her head down gently.

For a second Parker fights it, pushing back, twisting her head away, but Rosslyn hums unhappily and Parker stops, taking another moment before finally yielding, settling down against Rosslyn’s breasts. “I don’t want to die,” Parker whispers, vulnerable, frightened, and Rosslyn tugs gently on the locks she has trapped in her fingers. 

No, Parker didn’t want to die, and Rosslyn knew that long before now. That doesn’t negate the importance of the epiphany for Parker though. 

“No, you don’t,” she agrees, freeing her fingers and running them through Parker’s knotted hair slowly, gently detangling as she goes. The hair’s a matted mess of tangles, and by the time she’s finally gotten through the worst of it, Parker’s breathing deeply, and her arms aren’t clinging as fiercely. 

Parker’s hips are snug against her own, and Rosslyn can feel the tension leaving the body atop hers as she presses her fingers deeper, no longer hampered by the threat of accidently pulling at a hidden knot. 

“You’re alright,” she mutters, and Parker’s foot stops its gently bouncing – Rosslyn shifts slightly to trap it under her calf, just in case it endeavors to start up again later. The grease in Parker’s hair has coated her fingers, and they slide easily through to the mass of hair, pressing through all the way down to the back of Parker’s head. 

Parker shifts her head slightly, arching into the fingers; Rosslyn complies, running over the spot they’ve been adjusted to. “Am I?” Parker asks, her voice thick and easy and heart-wrenchingly raw. 

“Yes, you are. You’re alright.” Rosslyn presses a kiss into Parker’s hair, pulling her hand out of it so she can place it along the back of Parker’s neck. “Now sleep.” 

A soft noise comes from the back of Parker’s throat, but Rosslyn suspects the young woman is already sleeping. 

\- 

The doorbell rings early in the morning, and Rosslyn’s been expecting it. Parker had appeared in the kitchen two days ago; her face was white as a sheet and her eyes had been wide and panicked like Rosslyn had almost forgotten they could be. 

It had taken a long time to bring Parker down. The pain and fear had been so close to the surface, so exposed… Rosslyn had treaded carefully, worried that her thief had changed too much for their old methods to work anymore. 

It had taken a while to coax the story out of her, but from the pieces Rosslyn could put together, the job had gone wrong, and they’d almost lost Eliot. Eliot, who had put himself between a thug and Parker; who had taken a hit to the head with a shovel; who had been bleeding out of his ears as he killed the man; who had done it all to protect Parker, who wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place. 

The doorbell rings again and Rosslyn tightens her bathrobe, making sure the knot is secure before opening the door. 

“Nathan Ford,” she greets with a nod. Nathan looks surprised, and she gives him a moment to reciprocate. What name they’ve gotten, she’s not sure and Nathan doesn’t say, and before the silence can stretch too long, she takes a step back. “Please, come in,” she tells him before turning to walk down the hall. 

The gentle clicking of the door tells her that he’s accepted the offer, accepted the opportunity to understand. Rosslyn opens the door to the bedroom quietly, and Parker looks up at her from the bed with bleary eyes. “Hey Park, there’s someone here to see you,” she tells Parker evenly, and Parker frowns, half asleep. Rosslyn can’t blame her – the whole point of last night was to make the nightmares go away; to make Parker so exhausted she’d sleep through an earthquake. 

But Parker evidently hears the request in the tone, even if she doesn’t seem to understand it. The covers slide off her body, brilliantly white even in the darkness of the room; Nathan is coming down the hallway, and so Rosslyn says, “Make sure you put on clothes before you come out,” before shutting the door quietly. 

“This way,” she says, smiling pleasantly at Nathan, who looks weary and cautious, but not entirely surprised. 

Bright sunlight floods through the windows, casting sharp light along the floor before the shadows of the walls interrupt it. “Drink?” Rosslyn asks as Nathan takes a seat at the stool she’d pointed at – the area doesn’t offer much in the way of clues about her life, other than that in itself, so Nathan’s eyes are on her and she can see the crinkle of reservation along his temples. “Parker says you like Irish,” she says, taking out a glass and placing it on the breakfast bar in front of him. 

“Does she,” he answers, and Rosslyn can understand his resistance, his confusion – his hesitation and suspicion. His weary acceptance – Parker’s an enigma in her own right, and Rosslyn wonders if anything he learns about her will surprise him. 

The bottle comes from the liquor cabinet, one of the two inside it, and she pours an ounce into the glass and leaves the bottle. 

There’s a creak in the hardwood and she turns to the doorway. “Parker, I know you’re coming into the kitchen.” Of course it’s a leading statement, and the creaking stops as Parker turns around from her attempted escape to come into the kitchen.

Wearing only an overlarge tee-shirt (they talked about appropriate guest attire, but evidently they’d have to talk about it again), Parker appears in the doorway in what can only be categorized as a sulk. 

“You’re eating before you go,” Rosslyn tells her, and Parker’s eyes drift to Nathan, guilty and nervous. “Sit,” Rosslyn prompts, and the edge in her voice keeps Parker from turning away and disappearing. Like a skittish horse she makes her way across the room and onto the barstool next to Nathan, eyeing both of them with a frown. 

Silence settles as Rosslyn sets the water to boil, and pulls out a pan to make eggs and bacon on. Once the bacon is cooked and the eggs are on, and the coffee’s been made and Parker has a glass of juice in front of her, Rosslyn sets her eyes on Parker. 

Parker notices immediately, flaring up for a second before stubbornly glaring into her glass of orange juice. Nathan’s eyes move between the two of them, observant and calculating. Rosslyn doesn’t look away and Parker caves in time for her to turn around and move the eggs off the heat before they burn.

“This-is-Rosslyn-and-I-didn’t-know-what-to-do-and…?” Parker’s almost breathless, her eyes fixated on Rosslyn, watching as the eggs are divided out onto the three plates. 

Nathan can read into her non-question, and tells her softly, gently, “Eliot’s going to be fine.” 

Rosslyn puts the plates up onto the breakfast bar beside Parker. “Table, please,” she directs, and Parker takes the plates, watching her for one last second before turning and relocating to the table. 

Parker hovers nervously while Nathan sits, and seems even more nervous when Rosslyn sits. “Parker,” Rosslyn says softly, pushing the empty chair out from under the table with her foot, and Parker throws herself onto it, picking up the knife and playing with it. 

“Rosslyn, was it?” Nathan asks, and Rosslyn nods, taking her eyes off Parker and having a bite of eggs. There are questions Nathan wants to ask, things he needs to know – things that he needs to make sense of before he can let this go. But Rosslyn isn’t a mind reader like Parker seems to think Nathan is, and she doesn’t know what questions to answer until he asks them. 

A knife clatters against the plate and Rosslyn turns to Parker as she announces, jittery, “I don’t want to be here.” 

Any other time and Rosslyn would’ve let her leave, but this was a particular situation. “Eat,” she says instead, and Parker stares at her for a few seconds before sighing and picking up her fork. “Parker,” Rosslyn chides when she starts playing with the fork, and Parker stops; when she finally meets Rosslyn’s eye, she looks lost. 

“Hey,” Rosslyn murmurs, reaching over and putting a hand on Parker’s cheek – Parker’s eyes start moving away and toward Nathan, and Rosslyn moves her hand down, squeezing the side of Parker’s neck gently, “No, don’t.” Parker’s eyes snap back to hers, worried, and Rosslyn smiles at her. “Just eat,” she says, and Parker swallows thickly before nodding. 

When Rosslyn pulls away, Parker pulls her legs up on the chair – to her credit, this time the cutlery actually touches food. 

“How long have you known Parker?” Nathan asks, cool and collected, smiling at Parker when she looks up at him, and Rosslyn feels some relief that he seems to understand what’s got her freaked out. Two worlds were colliding right now, two things Parker’s tried to keep separate and away from each other; she has more stake in the crew of misfits Nathan runs than she’ll ever give credit for. 

Rosslyn looks over at Parker, meets her eye. It’s not her world, and so they’re not her things to tell. That’s the unspoken arrangement, and it isn’t hers to break. 

“You can tell him,” Parker says quietly, and Rosslyn wonders if she realizes yet that she’s going to have to lose one of these worlds in order to get what she needs from the other one. 

Wonders if Parker realizes yet that it’s going to be Rosslyn’s that fades away. 

\- 

The woman in her bed is young, younger than her, but maybe not that much younger. And she’s beautiful, all points and angles, smooth skin and innocence, with a sated wild abandon that’s borderline psychotic. Her hair is unkempt and mangled, just like the person Rosslyn can see beneath those deep blue eyes. The lure of that chaos is impossible to resist and Rosslyn can feel her thoughts starting to cloud with desire. 

Rosslyn wonders again how one off-hand comment on the train had led to this. All they know about each other is their first names – Rosslyn isn’t her real name though, and she doubts the name Parker is real either. 

It had been a clever quip, a teasing dare: ‘Then come home with me’, Rosslyn had said, and Parker’s face was the picture of confusion as she contemplated what that meant. But Parker claimed to be oblivious of the kind of attraction that could make people grind out sexual tension on a train, and when Rosslyn responded to her statement, Parker looked surprised that she’d spoken out loud. 

Yet when Rosslyn came out of the shower, Parker was standing in her room, the window open, head canted to the left. 

‘Show me’, Parker had demanded, and now she lies under Rosslyn, holding onto her defenses fiercely. 

“Let go,” Rosslyn whispers, bending down to press a kiss against Parker’s lips, and the other woman doesn’t respond, doesn’t move – doesn’t tense and doesn’t relax, just lies there passively, uncomprehending. 

Parker’s lips move against Rosslyn’s, “How?” Rosslyn’s tongue slides into Parker’s mouth before she can close it, a hand trailing up Parker’s side. 

“Don’t think,” Rosslyn tells her between one-sided kisses, and when her hand finds its way through Parker’s hair and onto her neck, she squeezes. Parker gasps, bucking up in surprise – not in fear but in pleasure, and Rosslyn pulls away. “Just be.”

\- 

Rosslyn pets Parker’s hair as her thief squirms against her thigh – they’re supposed to be watching television and relaxing, but Parker hasn’t been able to stay still for more than a minute. The restlessness usually only lasts a quarter of an hour – but she seems to be getting progressively more distraught, and when she nearly sits up in frustration, Rosslyn grips her hair and gives it a gently yank. 

Parker freezes, and turns enough to be able to look up at Rosslyn, the tension making her back taut. 

“What’s wrong?” Rosslyn asks, her free hand sliding onto Parker’s stomach, and Parker’s body presses down into the couch cushions, still tense. 

Emotions spill off Parker’s face: jealousy, concern, guilt, regret, anger. But they pass through without word or comprehension, and Rosslyn tightens her grip just a little the moment Parker starts to squirm again. Parker glares and frowns, but her arms finally settle, as if without her consent. 

Parker looks conflicted, confused, the frown on her face looking more somber as her eyebrows knit together. “What is it?” Rosslyn asks softly, her thumb caressing the thin fabric over Parker’s stomach. 

Parker wants to flee, wants to run but she won’t, not with Rosslyn holding her still and steady. 

“Is it your new friends?” Rosslyn asks, and Parker looks away, as close to a yes as they’re going to get. “Did they do something to you?” She can’t keep the protective edge out of her voice, and Parker’s eyes snap back to her. 

“No,” she says quickly, scrambling to get up, and Rosslyn lets go of her hair so she won’t hurt herself, and Parker pulls her knees under her and twists so that they’re facing each other. “No, not that. Not that at all. It’s…” But what it is, Parker can’t articulate, and she looks frustrated and annoyed. 

But Rosslyn does know, does understand, and she’s been waiting for this moment ever since Parker started showing up with tales about her new crew, her new team – her new family. About what Nate was doing, what Sophie had taught her, how Eliot reacted to the things she said, and Hardison – her unresolved feelings towards the team’s hacker were never explicitly mentioned, but Rosslyn could hear it in the way he was woven into every narrative, how she placed so much unconscious importance on his presence, how inexplicably fascinated she was by him. 

Rosslyn wondered when this was going to happen, and she put a hand on Parker’s knee. “It’s alright,” she tells Parker, and Parker, who’s realized by now that sometimes Rosslyn knows what she’s thinking without having to saying anything, seems to relax a little. “I know they’re special to you. Do what you need to do.” 

A strange look comes across Parker’s face, one that Rosslyn doesn’t often see there. It’s one part confused, one part caution, and two parts ‘maybe-it’s-different-in-normal-people-land’. It passes quickly though, and when Parker settles back on her thigh and melts away while Rosslyn watches television, she figures that maybe it wasn’t going to happen just yet. 

\- 

At some point their casual fling had turned into Parker lying in her bed with a concussion and a recently dislocated shoulder, bleeding all over the place and refusing to go see the doctor. 

“Why did you come here if you weren’t going to let me help you?” Rosslyn yells at the woman in her bed, frustrated, worried, and absolutely petrified that Parker’s going to close her eyes and never open them again. 

Parker moves to sit up and Rosslyn’s on the bed in an instant, pushing her back down by the shoulder that isn’t decorated in blotched red and purple. “I’ll just leave then,” Parker mutters, though the pain from just that one touch makes her body shake, and Rosslyn instantly regrets it. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, gently kissing the place even though she knows that logically, it’s going to make things worse if anything. 

This is scary, and surreal, and even though Parker’s told her that she’s a thief… that never connected to this image here; the blood coming from her head is nothing compared to what it would’ve been if Parker hadn’t managed to get caught in the rope and dislocate her shoulder as she successfully halted the process of falling. 

Parker’s eyes are screwed up tight and Rosslyn lies down on the bed beside her, careful to avoid the other bruises she can see dotting Parker’s body. “It’s okay,” she mutters, reaching out and putting an arm across Parker’s stomach, the one thing that seems to have survived unscathed. 

Parker winces and Rosslyn pushes her nose into Parker’s neck, nuzzling it for a moment. “I’m just scared,” she says, pressing a gentle kiss into Parker’s neck. Parker’s body shivers again, and Rosslyn nudges her cheek with her nose. “Let me take care of you?” 

“No doctors,” Parker whispers, her eyes still screwed tight; whether the tears are an involuntary reaction to the pain, or something else, Rosslyn doesn’t know. 

Rosslyn looks down at her, contemplative. “If you throw up, or get worse, I’m taking you,” she haggles, and Parker takes a moment before nodding. “Stay here,” Rosslyn says, as if Parker has the ability to move at the moment, “I’ll get you some ice and clean you up.” 

\- 

Desperation fills Parker’s eyes, frantic and panicked; there’s a silent plea there for Rosslyn to make it all go away, and there’s no way she can ignore it.

Rosslyn trails kisses down Parker’s stomach, slowly, carefully, all the way down – soon Parker will be moaning and shaking, too occupied with the physical responses of her body to even have a wisp of a thought of anything else. 

\- 

There are two boxes of cereal on the countertop, and Rosslyn looks around to see if the thief that should’ve accompanied them was around too. They were boxes from her pantry, but Rosslyn had bought them specifically for Parker, who mentioned the brand the last time she was over, and her acute displeasure with its absence from the shelves. 

Rosslyn finds Parker sitting behind the table, in the corner of the dining room, glaring at the boxes from between fake plants. 

“Hey Parker,” Rosslyn says cautiously, her voice low and even, in case this is one of Parker’s… less amiable moods. Three times Parker’s come and gone in stoic calmness, and it’s more worrisome than the sadistic glint Rosslyn can see sometimes, or even the frenetic wildness that Parker occasionally storms in with. 

Parker’s breath hitches, so Rosslyn knows that Parker knows she’s there – but Parker doesn’t say anything, just stares at the cereal like it might explode any second, like it’s a ticking time bomb that’s going to seal her fate if she so much as twitches. There’s no handbook out there for how to deal with Parker, but at times like these, Rosslyn wishes there was. 

After a moment of thought, she slowly lowers herself to the floor. “I’m just going keep you company, then,” Rosslyn says softly, leaning back against the wall and shifting along it until her knee touches Parker’s. 

Parker doesn’t flinch away, and Rosslyn takes that as a point in her favor. For a while they sit there, Parker staring at the cereal and Rosslyn alternating between looking at Parker and wondering how long Parker can stay here. 

After a few minutes, Rosslyn shifts even closer, so that now her knee rests overtop of Parkers; a few minutes after that, she leans in so that their shoulders are touching; ten minutes later she puts a hand on Parker’s thigh; a few minutes after that, Parker makes her first move and slides down the wall, wrapping her arms around Rosslyn’s waist and pushing her head into Rosslyn’s lap, the strength of her grip reminding Rosslyn what exactly it is Parker does for a living; two or three minutes after that, Rosslyn starts carding her fingers through Parker’s hair. Parker flinches a couple times, and Rosslyn frowns as she catches the knots in Parker’s hair with her fingertips. It doesn’t take too long to work them out though, and as soon as Rosslyn can start pressing her fingers against Parker’s head and running them along the back of her skull and down her neck, Parker’s whole body starts to relax, her arms getting looser, her head heavier against Rosslyn’s thigh, the tension in her back slowly melting away. 

Rosslyn can’t feel the bottom of her thighs, her ass, or her lower back, but Parker’s a puddle in her lap, breathing deeply and evenly, completely and utterly relaxed. “Park,” Rosslyn says softly, worried that Parker might have fallen asleep. A soft hum responds, and it’s a sound that Rosslyn doesn’t think she’s ever heard before. 

“Let’s go to bed, Parker,” she says, and Parker doesn’t respond – when Rosslyn stills her fingers, Parker shifts, nudging Rosslyn’s thigh and trying to get the hand back. “Once we get to bed,” Rosslyn promises; sometimes, after a particularly exhausting night, they lie in bed together and Parker’s like this. But it’s never been like this before, and when Rosslyn finally manages to get Parker up on her feet and standing, she wraps her arms around Rosslyn’s waist, and presses her face against Rosslyn’s shoulder. 

They manage to make it to the bed without falling, and Rosslyn takes the arms around her and ducks out under them. Parker makes a noise as she hits the bed, her grip on Rosslyn’s hand unrelentingly firm. “I’m coming,” Rosslyn mutters fondly, arranging the blankets so that they can easily slide under them. 

When Rosslyn gets into the bed, Parker snuggles up in seconds, her arms and legs wrapping around Rosslyn. “Got my cereal,” Parker whispers, and Rosslyn nods cautiously, hoping there’s more. “No one’s, done that before,” Parker finishes after a second. 

Rosslyn doesn’t respond, just pulls Parker even closer, the strings of her heart tearing from the tenderness she feels toward Parker. It shouldn’t mean so much to Parker, but it does. And it shouldn’t mean so much to Rosslyn, but it does. 

“My thief needs her cereal,” Rosslyn mutters, and Parker nearly purrs at the statement; Rosslyn’s simply glad that Parker’s accepted it as true. Rosslyn wakes up in the middle of the night to Parker getting creative with the cereal, but she indulges the thief happily – her thief, rather, and Rosslyn knows that no matter what Parker sees their relationship as, Rosslyn is definitely, irrefutably, blindly in love with her. 

\- 

Even before her eyes are open, Rosslyn can feel the press of cool steel against her throat. The door to her room is ajar, and she can hear the soft hum of the fridge from down the hallway. It takes a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, and she doesn't move in the interim; the door had been closed when she turned in for the night, and Parker had made enough of her late night entrances for this not to be out of the norm. Except for the knife.

"Parker," Rosslyn says when she can finally make out the features on her thief's face; the details she's unable to pick out, but the smooth resolve of the brow is there, and the soft furrow of her chin.

Things have ceased to surprise her - either it's squirrels, or bags of money, or statues that smell like sand and wood, or a orange in the middle of the counter, or a ungodly amount of MTV on the PVR, or a small, helpless shape curled up in the nook between the couch and the wall. This is just another test, another query - a question, expressed in the only way that Parker knew how.

"Why aren't you scared?" she asks aggressively, and Rosslyn entertains the thought that at least Parker's learning. Now there’s a verbal component to the questions. 

Parker's not asking why she's not scared - Parker knows why she's not scared. They'd gone through the why-do-you-like-me phase already, so this is a deeper question. This is a question that was begging to know where trust came from.

"I know you won't hurt me," Rosslyn says, calm and in control.

"Why do you let me come, and go? Why do you let me in?"

“You let yourself in,” Rosslyn points out, easy where Parker is tense, steady where Parker wavers. 

“And you don’t stop me. Why?” The pressure from the knife increases, and Rosslyn wonders if Parker’s cut through the skin yet. A blade that sharp, she wouldn’t even notice it. 

But even if Parker draws blood, Rosslyn knows that her thief’s not a killer. Her thief’s not a murderer, or a psychopath, no matter how many people have told her otherwise. The value Parker placed on life was tied to her ability to her emotional investment in that life. The people who operated in her peripheral were safe, just as the people who wronged her curious sense of morality were dispensable. And the people who showed Parker care and attention, those who stayed true and honest – they were a reason to die for. 

“Because I know that you won’t hurt me.” 

Suddenly there’s a pool of cold in the nook of Rosslyn’s throat, a wet trail down her neck from the knifepoint. 

“I hurt you.” Parker’s voice is mechanic, betraying nothing. The darkness hides Parker’s eyes from Rosslyn, hides the raw emotion and unfiltered thoughts. But Rosslyn doesn’t need to see what she already knows. 

“Not really,” she tells Parker, her hand reaching out across the bedding. Parker flinches as Rosslyn brushes her fingers, almost dropping the knife in her scramble backwards. Rosslyn sits up as Parker hits the footboard along the end of the bed, pushing the covers away. 

“You’re not scared,” Parker says again, confusion and disbelief leaking into her tone. The knife lies on the bed between them, catching the light from the window. 

“No,” she answers softly, moving across the bed to Parker and picking up the knife, “I’m not.” Parker’s knees fall to the side when Rosslyn gently nudges them open, and she kneels down in the crook of Parker’s legs. “Are you?” she asks, an arm braced against Parker’s breastbone so that if she scrambles again, it won’t be right into the blade at her neck. 

Parker takes a moment to think. Show is better than tell, and Rosslyn can only hope that she knows Parker as well as she thinks she does. Can only hope that Parker trusts her. “No,” Parker says after a moment, and her head tilts back as she exposes more of her neck. 

Rosslyn tosses the knife across the room, the sharp clatter as it falls to the ground making them both wince. “So now you know?” Rosslyn asks, holding the pressure on her arm, holding Parker still. Her thief is humming with barely suppressed energy, but Rosslyn knows that Parker has to process this. Has to take the time to understand – to memorize. 

“Yeah,” Parker whispers softly, and Rosslyn kisses her to make sure she remembers.

\- 

Love is something that Parker doesn't understand. Love is a mysterious entity that only exists in movies. Love is a whisper on the street for her, the same way that the criminal underworld is just a distant reality for most.

Love is unfathomable, unattainable, and undesirable.

Except when Rosslyn wakes up to see Parker staring at her, she knows that Parker's realized those three things aren’t true. 

\- 

There’s a man by the hospital bed, holding onto Parker’s hand. The darkness of his skin makes Parker’s seem that much whiter. Her face is a ghostly pale that seems too transparent even for Rosslyn’s memories. This is the scenario that’s played out in her head dozens of times, and now it’s finally come to. 

“Who’re you?”

Rosslyn smiles at the man - Hardison, the hacker, the one that won Parker’s heart long before either of them had noticed it. Parker was her thief, but these people were her family. 

It was time to let her go. 

Rosslyn touches Parker’s hand gently, trying desperately to find something familiar in the face below her. There was nothing though, no motion, no animation. No small twitches brought about by visceral dreams, only medical stillness. “I’m just a friend,” she answers, and she knows that Hardison has realized who she is when he stays quiet as she bends down to place a kiss on Parker’s forehead. 

“Where are you going?” Hardison demands frantically, standing as Rosslyn turns to leave. He’s as poor at hiding his emotions as Parker is, and Rosslyn’s heart aches for this moment to still be coming, instead of already arrived; aches for more words and actions, instead of just their residual. 

“She’s yours now,” she tells Hardison, who looks offended by the notion.

“To hell she ain’t!” 

It’s not meant to be offensive, and Rosslyn tries to explain the best way she knows how: “She is though. When she wakes up, it’s you she’s going to need. You, and the rag-tag team. And you’ll need her. Parker and I got what we could out of our relationship, and it was good.” Rosslyn couldn’t help but smile. The memories jumbled and overlapped each other, weaving themselves into undeniable love.

“But we’ve run our course, and now it’s time for yours. This is the happiest ending we’re gonna get. Please don’t make it into something sad.”


End file.
